_________________________________

Press Release

ALLEN RUPPERSBERG

THE NOVEL THAT WRITES ITSELF
EL SEGUNDO RECORD CLUB
Exhibition from September 12 to October 31, 2014
Opening on Thursday September 11, 2014 from 6 pm to 9 pm,
in the presence of Allen Ruppersberg

_________________________________
Summary

THE NOVEL THAT WRITES ITSELF - p. 3

The exhibition at mfc-michle didier gallery - p. 5
Allen Ruppersbergs biographical references - p. 6
Press images - p. 8
Contact - p. 20

mfc-michle didier
66, rue Notre-Dame de Nazareth, 75003 Paris
info@micheledidier.com - www.micheledidier.com
phone +33 (0)1 71 97 49 13 - mobile +33 (0)6 09 94 13 46 - fax +32 (0)2 374 75 98

Allen Ruppersberg
The Novel That Writes Itself
Tiltle page
Binder: 469 pages, 247.75 x 302 mm each one
Limited edition of 24 copies signed and numbered
Produced and published in 2014 by mfc-michle didier
2014 Allen Ruppersberg and mfc-michle didier

THE NOVEL THAT WRITES ITSELF

It all begins with the end of a story
It all begins with the end of a story, the one about the Colby Poster Printing Company that
shut down in December 2012, taking with itself an emblematical graphic identity into history.
A Colby poster can be easily distinguished from others and bear the stamp from L.A..
Multicolored posters with unexpected gradients of flashy, typically Californian colors the
yellow of the sun or the beach, the green of the lush vegetation in this West Coast Eden,
the blue of the ocean, the red or the pink of all the other wonders of this heavenly place on
earth the Colby posters, covered with outrageously bold characters, do not respect any
typographical rules. These rules are mistreated, possibly by ignorance, probably on purpose;
in either case it is a certain rule of the West not to follow the rules of the East.
Colby Posters were the ultimate graphic design ready-mades and I think Marcel Duchamp
would agree.1 says Julia Luke of the Hammer Museum.
Individuals or professionals of Los Angeles entrusted the production of their communication
media to the Colby printing house: announcements for school fairs, concert, political
meetings, posters for films, performances or all other services. The posters were then
put up on the wooden utility poles that characterized the city, as true marks of identity
in the cityscape of Los Angeles. Many other artists and celebrities, such as Elvis Presly,
Martin Luther King, Ed Ruscha or Eve Fowler also turned to this particular aesthetic. Allen
Ruppersberg was one of their most faithful and regular customers.
From the book to posters, from the posters to the binder
It begins also in 1978, when Allen Ruppersberg has an idea of a work in progress which
he would call The Novel That Writes Itself, and which he would make in the shape of a
fictionalized autobiography where he would talk of his adventures as a young artist, which
he is at the time. The main characters by his side in this novel would be the artists friends
(Ed Ruscha), his gallery owner (Rosamund Felsen), collectors (Elyse and Stanley Grinstein)
who would buy their places in the story for 300 dollars. Allen Ruppersberg also provides
the opportunity to become a supporting character for 100 dollars or to be an extra for 50
dollars. A decade later, Allen Ruppersberg does not manage to materialize the project, he
is still missing some elements.
In parallel to this project, he starts to produce aphorisms or enigmatic questions THERE
IS JUST / A MOMENT / WHEN THINGS CEASE, HOW I MISS THE AVANT-GARDE
printed on multicolored posters. These posters, the famous Colbys, start to show up at his
exhibitions around the middle of the 1980s. He realizes in 1990 that in fact the novel had
written itself without his knowing. By then, 50 posters had been produced. The Novel
That Writes Itself is thus given substance to by Colby Posters through which he shows not
only how the characters of his autobiography evolve but also an array of his projects such
as Honey, I rearranged the collection or The Singing Posters, a phonetic interpretation of
Howl, a poem by Allen Ginsberg.
The pages of The Novel That Writes Itself, a work whose essentially romanesque nature
requires the shape of a book, break away one by one to be put on the walls of galleries
or museums. This novel by Allen Ruppersberg takes, in its provisional form, the shape
3

of a renewed installation, enriched with each new presentation. In the footsteps of El

Lissitzky, Allen Ruppersberg declines the traditional structure of a book by turning its
pages into posters. Jan Tumlir quotes, in his introductory text to The Novel That Writes
Itself, the following words by El Lissitzky: The traditional book was torn into separate
pages, enlarged a hundredfold, colored for greater intensity, and brought into the street...
The artist lives a different life from the renown typographer but their intentions converge.
The Novel That Writes Itself finishes to write itself in 2013 with the closing of the Colby
Company. Time has come, perhaps, to bring back the classic format of a novel. Allen
Ruppersberg, however, has chosen to compensate the constraint of a book by giving it the
independence of a poster. The binder holds together a number of separate pages who can
keep their original poster-like nature.
The Novel That Writes Itself builds itself in the way a cadavre exquis is made, through a
random mixing of posters from the Colby printing house that the artist has collected, some
pictures of installations of The Novel That Writes Itself and, Allen Ruppersbergs very own
Colby Posters. He thinks of the artists book as an interactive sculpture, in a similar way to
how he had perceived his first novel Greetings from L.A. in 1972. The Novel That Writes
Itself took him more time (1978 - 2014) but the writing of this piece required by its nature
the experiences Allen Ruppersberg went through in his life as an artist which, in his case,
are as numerous and varied as the posters themselves.
Julia Luke, Senior Designer Hammer Museum, in Printing the Identity of Los Angeles, text by Chad Kouri,
2013, http://www.mascontext.com/
2
Jan Tumlir, The Torn -Apart Book, text published in The Novel That Writes Itself, 2014
1

The exhibition at mfc-michle didier gallery

The exhibition will consist of two different parts: The Novel That Writes Itself and
EL SEGUNDO RECORD CLUB.
The Novel That Writes Itself is a new edition by Allen Ruppersberg, the fourth production
of the artist published by mfc-michle didier. Prior to this work have been produced the
installation The New Five Foot Shelf in 2001, the artist book The New Five Foot Shelf of
Books in 2003 and Chapter VI in 2009.
The Novel That Writes Itself is a finished whole of a novel in progress, initiated in 1978 by the
artist. This work includes, gathered in a binder of more than 10 cm thick, the text The TornApart Book by Jan Tumlir, in introduction, and a series of 460 single-sided perforated sheets.
Page after page, we discover the posters produced by the artist at the Colby Poster Printing
Company up until its closing down in 2013, the posters Colby had produced that the artist
had collected, and several photographs of past installations of The Novel That Writes Itself
which come to punctuate the narration.
The exhibition, by offering the possibility to handle the binder, a heavy object, will give each
person the chance to feel the magnitude of the novel-artwork The Novel That Writes Itself.
The work is meant to be Allen Ruppersbergs autobiography, as fictionalized as it may be,
and must therefore embrace the essence of the artists work during the past 40 years.
The opening night of the exhibition will also provide the occasion for a whole new record
store to open its doors : EL SEGUNDO RECORD CLUB.
EL SEGUNDO RECORD CLUB follows the mythical tradition of the 1969 Als cafe and the
1971 Als Grand Hotel, two projects by Allen Ruppersberg which consisted respectively of
opening a real caf and a hotel, the originality coming from the fact that they were run by
artists. These places became, in a matter of a few weeks, places of assembly, parties or
performances.
EL SEGUNDO RECORD CLUB will be run according to other principles imagined by Allen
Ruppersberg, in line with the nature of this new setting, a vinyl store to be explored. The
idea, however, stays the same compared to the previous adventures mentioned above, each
visitor is invited to come and discover what the record shop by Allen Ruppersberg has in
store for them.
The exhibition will take place from September 12 to October 31, 2014 at mfc-michle didier
gallery in Paris. The opening night will be on Thursday September 11, 2014 from 6 pm to 9
pm in the presence of Allen Ruppersberg, artist and temporary record store owner.

Allen Ruppersbergs biographical

references
Allen Ruppersberg is born in 1944 in Cleveland, Ohio, United States.
He lives and works in New York and in Santa Monica.
Allen Ruppersberg is among the generation of American conceptual artists who changed
the way art was thought about and made at the end of the 1960s. His multiform artistic
work, which includes paintings, sculptures, photographs, installations, performances and
books, amongst other media, is inspired by the Beat Generation and anchored in a critical
approach to the media and consumer society.
Over the years, Ruppersberg, an avid collector, has accumulated an impressive quantity
of books, posters, postcards, educational films, magazines, records and other documents
or objects that bare witness to American popular culture. This archive serves as a regular
resource for the artist, who tirelessly draws, copies, classifies and recycles elements in the
making of his works.
During his early years in Los Angeles, he began significant relationships with John Baldessari,
Ed Ruscha, William Wegman and Allan McCollum. He participated in the 1969 exhibition
When Attitudes Become Form and is recognized as a seminal practitioner of installation art,
having produced works includin Als Cafe (1969), Als Grand Hotel (1971) and The Novel that
Writes Itself (1978).
Since the late 1960s, his work has been the subject of over sixty solo exhibitions and nearly
200 group shows.
His work can be found in permanent collections of museums internationally, including the
Foundation de Appel in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, the Museum fr Moderne Kunst in
Frankfurt, Germany, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Museum of Contemporary
Art in Los Angeles and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, United States.
mfc-michle didier produced three pieces by the artist before The Novel that Writes Itself:
the installation The New Five Foot Shelf in 2001, the artist book The New Five Foot Shelf of
Books in 2003 and Chapter VI in 2009.

Solo Exhibitions and Duos since 2001

2014 Allen Ruppersberg: No Time Left to Start Again and Again, Wiels, Brussels

FOR COLLECTORS ONLY (everyone is a collector), Greengrassi, London

Drawing & Writing: 1972-1989, Marc Selwyn Fine Art, Beverly Hills, CA
2013 The Umbrella Corner (6/6), curated by Moritz Kng, ProjecteSD, Barcelona
2012 Allen Ruppersberg: The Birth and Death of Rock n Roll, The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago
2011 Dan Graham / Allen Ruppersberg, Galerie Micheline Szwajcer, Antwerp
2010 Allen Ruppersberg: No Time Left to Start Again 2, Air de Paris, Paris

Allen Ruppersberg: No Time Left to Start Again, Margo Leavin Gallery, Los Angeles

Allen Ruppersberg, Greene Naftali Gallery, New York
2009 You and me or the art of give and take, Santa Monica Museum of Art, Santa Monica

Allen Ruppersberg: As the Crow Flies/How I miss the Avant-garde, greengrassi, London
2008 Allen Ruppersberg, Camden Arts Centre, London

Allen Ruppersberg and Allan McCollum, Studio Guenzani, Milan

Allen Ruppersberg: Selected Works, Margo Leavin Gallery, Los Angeles
2007 Alterations, Galerie Micheline Szwajcer, Antwerp
2006

Allen Ruppersberg: The Singing Posters, Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art, Nora
Eccles Harrison Museum of Art, Utah State University, Logan, UT
Allen Ruppersberg: Photoworks 1970-73, Margo Leavin Gallery, Los Angeles
Allen Ruppersberg et Guy de Cointet, Air de Paris, Paris, France
Allen Ruppersberg: The Singing Posters, University Art Museum, Berkeley, CA

2005

Allen Ruppersberg: One of Many - Origins and Variants, Kunsthalle Dusseldorf, Dusseldorf,
Germany, travelled to: Dundee Contemporary Arts, Dundee, Scotland; Centro Andaluz de
Arte Comtemporneo, Seville, Spain; IAC Institut dArt Contemporain, Villeurbanne, France
Allen Ruppersberg: Free/Trade Art and Poetry, greengrassi, London
Allen Ruppersberg: The Singing Posters, Parts II & III, Gallery Name, City, State
Exhibition Title, Jurgen Becker; Karin Guenther / Nina Borgmann Galleries, Hamburg, Germany
Allen Ruppersberg: The New Five Foot Shelf, Texas Gallery, Houston
Allen Ruppersberg: Line Drawings, Book Pages, Games and a Puzzle, Christine Burgin
Gallery, New York

2004 Allen Ruppersberg: The Singing Posters, Rice University, Sewall Gallery, Houston, TX

Allen Ruppersberg: The New Five Foot Shelf and Other Projects, Margo Leavin Gallery,

Los Angeles

Allen Ruppersberg: The New Five Foot Shelf, Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem, The
Netherlands
2003 Allen Ruppersberg: The Singing Posters, Studio Guenzani, Milan

Allen Ruppersberg: The Singing Posters, Poetry/Sound/Collage/Sculpture/Book,

Gorney \ Bravin + Lee, New York
2002 Allen Ruppersberg, Galerie Micheline Szwajcer, Antwerp

Allen Ruppersberg: Drawings 1973-1980, Christine Burgin Gallery, New York

Allen Ruppersberg: The New Five Foot Shelf, Galerie Erna Hecey, Luxembourg
2001

Allen Ruppersberg, Colby College Museum of Art (Skowhegan School), Waterville, Maine
Allen Ruppersberg, The New Five Foot Shelf, Galerie Micheline Szwajcer, Antwerp
Allen Ruppersberg: The Novel that Writes Itself; Honey I Rearranged the Collection,
Margo Leavin Gallery, Los Angeles

Allen Ruppersberg
The Novel That Writes Itself
Binder: 469 pages, 247.75 x 302 mm each one
Limited edition of 24 copies signed and numbered
Produced and published in 2014 by mfc-michle didier
2014 Allen Ruppersberg and mfc-michle didier

Allen Ruppersberg
The Novel That Writes Itself
Binder: 469 pages, 247.75 x 302 mm each one
Limited edition of 24 copies signed and numbered
Produced and published in 2014 by mfc-michle didier
2014 Allen Ruppersberg and mfc-michle didier

Allen Ruppersberg
The Novel That Writes Itself
Binder: 469 pages, 247.75 x 302 mm each one
Limited edition of 24 copies signed and numbered
Produced and published in 2014 by mfc-michle didier
2014 Allen Ruppersberg and mfc-michle didier

10

Allen Ruppersberg
The Novel That Writes Itself
Binder: 469 pages, 247.75 x 302 mm each one
Limited edition of 24 copies signed and numbered
Produced and published in 2014 by mfc-michle didier
2014 Allen Ruppersberg and mfc-michle didier

11

Allen Ruppersberg
The Novel That Writes Itself
Binder: 469 pages, 247.75 x 302 mm each one
Limited edition of 24 copies signed and numbered
Produced and published in 2014 by mfc-michle didier
2014 Allen Ruppersberg and mfc-michle didier

12

Allen Ruppersberg
The Novel That Writes Itself
Binder: 469 pages, 247.75 x 302 mm each one
Limited edition of 24 copies signed and numbered
Produced and published in 2014 by mfc-michle didier
2014 Allen Ruppersberg and mfc-michle didier

13

Allen Ruppersberg
The Novel That Writes Itself
Binder: 469 pages, 247.75 x 302 mm each one
Limited edition of 24 copies signed and numbered
Produced and published in 2014 by mfc-michle didier
2014 Allen Ruppersberg and mfc-michle didier

14

Allen Ruppersberg
The Novel That Writes Itself
Binder: 469 pages, 247.75 x 302 mm each one
Limited edition of 24 copies signed and numbered
Produced and published in 2014 by mfc-michle didier
2014 Allen Ruppersberg and mfc-michle didier

15

Allen Ruppersberg
The Novel That Writes Itself
Binder: 469 pages, 247.75 x 302 mm each one
Limited edition of 24 copies signed and numbered
Produced and published in 2014 by mfc-michle didier
2014 Allen Ruppersberg and mfc-michle didier

16

Allen Ruppersberg
The Novel That Writes Itself
Binder: 469 pages, 247.75 x 302 mm each one
Limited edition of 24 copies signed and numbered
Produced and published in 2014 by mfc-michle didier
2014 Allen Ruppersberg and mfc-michle didier

17

Allen Ruppersberg
The Novel That Writes Itself
Binder: 469 pages, 247.75 x 302 mm each one
Limited edition of 24 copies signed and numbered
Produced and published in 2014 by mfc-michle didier
2014 Allen Ruppersberg and mfc-michle didier

18

Allen Ruppersberg
The Novel That Writes Itself
Binder: 469 pages, 247.75 x 302 mm each one
Limited edition of 24 copies signed and numbered
Produced and published in 2014 by mfc-michle didier
2014 Allen Ruppersberg and mfc-michle didier

19

FOR ANY FURTHER INFORMATION

OR IMAGE REQUEST
PLEASE CONTACT US
info@micheledidier.com
+33 (0)1 71 97 49 13
mfc-michle didier
66 rue Notre-Dame de Nazareth
75003 Paris - France
www.micheledidier.com
Open from Tuesday to Saturday from 12 am to 7 pm
Subway: Rpublique, Strasbourg Saint-Denis, Arts et Mtiers

20